1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to fluorinating agents and, more specifically, to iodine (VII) oxytetrafluorohypofluorite and the process for its preparation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The number of elements known to form stable hypofluorites is very limited. They are known only for carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, selenium, fluorine, and chlorine containing compounds. In addition, the unstable hypofluorous acid, HOF, has been prepared. However, no iodine hypofluorites had been known prior to this invention.
Inorganic hypofluorites are generally prepared by the alkali metal fluoride catalyzed fluorination of the corresponding oxyfluorides by elemental fluorine (Lustig and Shreeve, Advances in Fluorine Chemistry, Vol. 7, pages 175-198, 1973). In the case of iodine compounds, this method does not lead to the formation of iodine hypofluorites, as demonstrated by extensive experiments in the inventors' laboratory.
Recent work in the inventors' laboratory has resulted in an alternate synthetic method for the hypofluorites FOClO.sub.3 and FOSO.sub.2 F. It was found that the NF.sub.4.sup.+ ClO.sub.4.sup.- and NF.sub.4.sup.+ SO.sub.3 F.sup.- salts, which were isolated from a metathetical reaction of NF.sub.4 SbF.sub.6 with CsClO.sub.4 or CsSO.sub.3 F in anhydrous HF solution, on thermal decomposition yield the corresponding hypofluorites, FOClO.sub.3 and FOSO.sub.2 F. However, application of this approach to CsIO.sub.4 failed because CsIO.sub.4 interacts with HF to give fluorinated products, as demonstrated by Selig and coworkers (Journal Inorganic Nuclear Chemistry, Supplement, 91, 1976). Furthermore, it was shown by the inventors that Cs.sup.+ IF.sub.4 O.sub.2.sup.-, when dissolved in anhydrous HF undergoes solvolysis to produce Cs.sup.+ HF.sub.2.sup.- and HOIF.sub.4 O.